Perfect World
by Annie2
Summary: Spike thinks about the past.


Perfect World  
  
By Annie  
  
Rated: PG  
  
Summary: Sometime far in the future, Spike reflects back on his most prominent kill Warning: Major character death  
  
Disclaimer: Don't own 'em; getting nothing in return.  
  
Feedback: crehnert@ptd.net  
  
  
  
Perfect World  
  
In a perfect world, the Slayer decimates vampires and demons, one after another, until she meets that last one, the one she can't vanquish. Another Slayer is called immediately and the demon destruction continues. The perfect world still turns. Day becomes night. Seasons become years. Years become centuries.  
  
I know. I have seen so many years I have lost count. The only thing I count anymore is dead Slayers. I'm not sure when it became my mission in unlife - killing Slayers. Certainly I have the reputation now. Everyone knows about it, and William the Bloody has eventually been overshadowed totally by Spike the Slayer.  
  
I've done a lot of them. And the chip doesn't matter. It's simply a case of how much pain one person is willing to endure. To keep killing Slayers, I am willing to endure a lot. Have learned to endure more and more. The ultimate satisfaction - simply the count I keep in my head, the little railroad spike markers I have lined up in my memory.  
  
Twenty-five. Twenty-five Slayers have bitten the proverbial dust, courtesy of the Big Bad. And make no mistake, mate, I was, am and always will be just that.  
  
The first two were easy. The task grows more difficult each and every time though. My reputation always precedes me. No matter where the new Chosen One arises, I will always show up, sooner or later, to dispose of her. Maybe not right away, sometimes I make them wait a few years. But they always know I'm coming. After I killed about ten of them, they got the general idea.  
  
They all blur together, the names and the faces, as I stand quietly in the dark, here in this old New Orleans cemetery amid the miniature granite houses in the miniature 'town.' They're laid out just like that, you know, like little stone towns, grids of streets to take a person up and down the rows of crammed-together tombs.  
  
She's been here for about two years now. I waited a bit, as I usually do, let her think I've given up on my Slayer safaris. I wait now, smoking in the dark. I don't even remember her name. I don't remember the names of most of the past Slayers. But, it doesn't matter, not really. I just do it. I'm already mentally prepared for the blinding pain, and the trusted demon who works for me, whom I pay very well, will certainly be right there to get me safely back to my current digs when I pass out from the pain. After I kill her.  
  
That's the scariest thing. I have to kill 'em quickly, a surprise thing, like lightening. Beheading, cutting the throat, something fast, because when I pass out I will be totally vulnerable. I can't figure out why any Slayer would come to her high-noon with me and not have any back- up. Point of pride, I guess.  
  
My mind drifts back over all of those kills as I wait patiently. One thing I am is patient. I waited for years to kill THE Slayer, the most famous of the lot. Lived to the ripe old age of twenty-two, until she finally succumbed. To the Big Bad.  
  
Her name I do remember.  
  
I'd been on a Slayer-killing roll, if you can stretch your imagination and call two a roll. When I went to Sunnydale, I had all intentions of killing that Slayer, but of course, there were a million things to muck it up. Friends always around, attentive watcher, Druscilla being all nuts and taking up so much of my time and energy. And that flaming prick Angelus.  
  
He had lots of perfect opportunities to kill her, but he had to be a showboat and drag it all out until it was too late. He thought he was the best actor in Sunnydale.  
  
Wrong. I was better, and it never occurred to me until after I went back there the third time. When poor misguided Dru took up with that bloody Fungus demon. I heard she was staked about fifty years ago. I missed her briefly, but my mind has been occupied for so long it isn't important that she's gone.  
  
So, there I was, with this brilliant idea to take down the Slayer, this demon-killer whose own death somehow kept eluding me.  
  
Like I said, I'm patient. I'm a good actor. And William, poor William, was an incurable romantic. I may not have been able to feel what he felt, but intellectually, I knew exactly what to do.  
  
I was good. I played it so well, she never guessed. None of them ever did. Never guessed that the chip wasn't anywhere nearly strong enough to stop me for good. Never guessed the nearness and almost constant companionship of her and her friends nauseated me. Never guessed how hard it was to help them, to pretend helplessness when there was none, to pretend love when there was none, to get beat up on a fairly regular basis. Never guessed how hard it was to finally, actually touch her warm, alive skin, kiss her, hold her human face in my hands and pretend ecstasy, when what I really felt was triumph.  
  
I spent a lot of time on that Slayer, before I did the deed. Played it for a long time. Waited until one night in my crypt, till I had all her love and trust, all she was capable of giving anyway. Waited till she was relaxing in the afterglow of fevered lovemaking, and I drove a wooden stake through her heart, my own scream of pain replacing the one she was unable to voice.  
  
After all, it was Angel's idea. He said to kill this girl you had to love her first.  
  
So, now, I kill them all, one after another, year after year, always waiting for the next one. See, bugger of it is, I fooled myself, too. Because now, I wait for every new Slayer to be called. I get up the courage to come and see her, see what she looks like. I'm waiting for the petite blonde one, and I will keep killing Slayers until she comes back. Then I'll stop.  
  
In a perfect world, in my perfect world, her time will come 'round again. And I am a patient man. 


End file.
